Throwback Thursday | Swendsen Service Station

SHEBOYGAN - According to Kathy Reese, owner of Styles on Broadway, in the late 1930s and into the 1940s, Swendsen Service Station used to operate at 1151 Broadway in a nearly 100-year-old building. According to Beth Dippel of the Sheboygan County Historical Research Center, underground gasoline tanks were installed by William H. Furhmann back in 1929.

In 1936, it was listed as a Wadhams in the Sheboygan City Directory, according to the Sheboygan County Historical Research Center, but later became known as Swendsen Service Station. In June 1941, Firestone Tires advertised in The Sheboygan Press which featured Swendson as one of their outlets. One of the ads touted selling 6.00-16 inch tires. That tire size, featured at $6.66 per tire, was featured on many American and European vehicles from the 1930-40s.

By the 1960s Ray Mehlberg ran the station and around 1970 Drollinger's Service Station operated there. In 1975 Quality State Oil ran the station. But 1978 it changed hands once again with Wilmot Service. Then in 1979 Haack's Sheboygan Insulation operated there in 1979. The location swung back again to become a gas station and mini mart by Quality State Oil by 1982.

Reese has run Styles on Broadway for 25 years. She says the building still has oil change pits under the floors Reese added that she considered getting a replacement clock that originally appeared in the facade peak of the building, but found the cost to be prohibitive.